In today's episode, Michelle introduces a comprehensive DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) maturity model designed to guide organizations through DEI initiatives' systematic implementation and evolution. The model is divided into three primary stages: setting the foundation, operationalizing DEI, and expanding and enhancing DEI. Michelle discusses the importance of each stage, detailing the essential actions and cultural dependencies required to succeed. For instance, setting the foundation entails compliance-related tasks, defining DEI objectives, and establishing psychological safety, while operationalizing DEI involves integrating DEI into daily operations, policies, and communication strategies. Finally, the expansion stage focuses on continuous learning, mentorship, community outreach, and embedding DEI metrics into all performance reviews.

The episode also covers the holistic and iterative approach to DEI, stressing that organizations must solidify foundational elements before progressing to more advanced stages. Michelle also discusses the importance of psychological safety, inclusive team norms, and transparent leadership styles as critical components across all maturity stages. By following this structured roadmap, organizations can more effectively navigate their DEI journeys, ensuring sustainable and impactful changes.

For more information or to connect with Michelle, visit: https://www.equity-at-work.com/

Key Topics Discussed:

• Introduction to the DEI Maturity Model
• Setting the Foundation for DEI
• Operationalizing DEI
• Expanding and Enhancing DEI
• Cultural Dependencies for DEI Success

I'm Michelle Bogan, founder and CEO of Equity at Work, and this is your DEI Minute, your go to podcast for leaders looking to navigate the ever evolving landscape of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. Whether you're just starting out with DEI or looking to sustain your long term successes, each episode will provide you with actions you can take to move DEI forward at your organization, all in 15 minutes or less. Thanks so much for joining us for another Your DEI Minute episode. Today, I'm going to talk through what we have built as a DEI maturity model which is really something to help you understand not just where you are in your the evolution of DEI in your organization but how to know what efforts you really need to shore up to get your foundation solid and then to progress over time through your roadmap and how you want this to evolve in your organization. So to begin, our the maturity model really is broken out into 3 chunks. The first is setting the foundation. The second piece moves into how are we operationalizing DEI. So how is it becoming part of the DNA of our organization tied into that very closely.

And then the final piece, which is really sort of in the realm of we're humming along terrifically. We're out and developing best practices, is how you're kind of expanding and enhancing DEI over time through a continuous learning process. And then under that, under all three of those sort of buckets are a number of cultural dependencies that I will walk you through, which are things that you need to have in place for DI to work just in general, but also for you to move from one piece of that maturity model into the next. So starting first with setting the foundation, this is where you're doing any of your kind of compliance related work related to DEI. So if you're 50 or more employees, you're filing your EEO one report, you may be doing some compliance training and other kind of HR reporting related to DEI. Certainly defining what DEI looks like in your organization, how that's aligned with your mission, your values, your vision. A piece that people forget about here is gathering input from your employees in terms of the kinds of things that you want that they are looking for in DEI work and to help you define what that roadmap really should look like. Certainly, getting a solid list of goals and things that are objectives with DI, things that you want done outcomes that you want from it that will make things different from today, sort of what is the desired future state look like, identifying DI champions and owners for different initiatives, which is not just the most senior leaders who you need as sponsors, but also people kind of embedded in multiple levels of the business that even if they don't have a very senior title have a lot of influence or people really have high regard for respect for and then getting into more of the nuts and bolts of, like, how do we put governance around this? How do we create some basic communications to raise awareness about DI and what our plans are? And get and particularly starting with leaders, start to do some education so that everyone's talking the same language, using similar terminology and understanding a lot of the ways that DEI influences how people work with each other in the workplace and with clients and out in the community.

So to me, those are kind of the the core elements to setting the foundation. The cultural pieces that you need for those foundational elements to to really be successful are three things. The first, which is so fundamental for this work, is psychological safety. So what that really means is that you've got an environment where everybody has an opportunity to ask questions, to share feedback, that there's no fear of retribution if you challenge your boss or you ask a question or ask for clarification that people really feel like they can be themselves in the workplace and that everybody's kind of got each other's back. So that's that is number 1, the most the biggest priority. If you do not have that in place today, there really is no point in investing in a lot of DEI work because you've got to have that place that piece in place first. The second cultural component that's a requirement is to have a very people focused company mission values and KPIs. So I think a lot of organizations do pretty well on the mission values.

They tend to be pretty people oriented. I think where the struggle comes in typically is in the KPIs, which are the key performance indicators or the metrics that your business uses to gauge the health of the business and how well employees are doing in driving the business forward. So when we talk about those kinds of KPIs and this links to the next cultural requirement, which is that behavior is measured and weighted equally or sometimes even more heavily than performance. What both of those are getting at is that it can't just be that somebody gets a pass on really bad behavior because they generate a lot of sales or they bring in a lot of new clients or they always are like super efficient in how they get their work done. The behavior really has to go hand in in with report performance and the kpis or the metrics that you use for the overall business. And then, ultimately, as we get into more operationalizing and enhancing, those will then get carried into individual performance reviews for seniors and then over time senior leaders and then over time trickle down into all employees. So, again, those three cultural requirements are psychological safety, people focused mission values and KPIs, and then that behavior is measured and weighed equally if not slightly more important than performance. That's what you need in place for the setting the foundation of DI pieces to work.

Once you've got all that in place and you're doing well, we can move into the second component of the maturity model which is operationalizing DI. So what that means is you're starting to build DI, integrate it into all of your policies, your processes, your benefits, the norms around how people work together, standards around behavior internally and even externally with clients or customers and you know other stakeholders and people out in the community that you interact with as well as suppliers and and other vendors that you're working with. This is where a lot of the kind of, like, real digging in sort of work happens. Number 1 here is taking a really honest look at where you are today. That's something we've talked about in a previous episode. So looking at analyzing the workforce data and what does the diversity look like across your company? How does that differ based on looking by level or by function or by location or by line of reporting? How are you stacking up against others in your industry and broader benchmarks? What are the opportunities there? Do you see people getting stuck at certain levels? Do you have higher turnover among certain groups of employees what are some of the stories that that data is telling you that's a great great great place to start when you're starting to operationalize DEI. So this will help you hone in on very specific goals and opportunities related to policy, process establishing good feedback and coaching and identifying spaces where bias is coming into play that needs to be weeded out and addressed. So that's the first component of operationalizing DI.

Then you can go into identifying like what are the metrics that we should use to measure DI in our organization. So we've now got a common language. We've identified our goals. We can see how we're doing. Where are the specific areas we want to improve? How are we going to measure that improvement? Moving from there into tying that into senior leader accountability and goals. So those measures should go into those goals. There should be regular conversation on progress against that, issues that might be bubbling up. And this is a point where you will start to have some feedback and issues bubble up that you didn't know about.

Don't panic. That's actually a good thing. You'll start to hear more things because people start to feel safe sharing those things. They see that this is an opportunity to get some of those things resolved or dealt with. So that's a good thing. So having a little bit of openness and agility in that realm will be really important as you're working through those goals and the accountability. Continuing to do DEI education. So taking it from the most senior leaders down throughout the rest of the organization so that, again, you're helping to build awareness and skills and behaviors across the full organization so everybody can really embrace these principles and live them out.

Very much tied to all this is, and a lot of people forget this part is to build a communication plan and strategy around how we're going to talk about DEI. What are all the different ways that we can build that into to existing communication on the website, an internal portal, a newsletter, all kinds of different ways to do that? And thinking about externally, how are we gonna talk about DEI? Do we comment on things in in terms of current events that are happening that are DEI related or not? And if we do, what are the criteria that we work through to figure out when we do say something and what we do say? How do we make sure that our internal and external Being Being really thoughtful about communication is a very important piece here to getting operationalizing DEI to really work. Continuing sort of that thread further down, taking a really good look at policies and benefits and, making sure all of those are fully inclusive. So a lot of companies at this step start to say, okay, if we look at our benefits offering, are we being fully inclusive of, for example, same sex couples who we wanna make sure their partner has access to insurance. We need may need to provide additional family planning supports for people who are in same sex couples and they want to adopt or use surrogacy or IVF. Those are some examples of ways to incorporate things into benefits. Another thing that is a more recent trend that's been terrific to see is acknowledging that medical care for some people from underrepresented minority communities can be either harder to access or not as robust as what might be available to some others. And making sure that the providers that are pulled in network really help to balance that out.

So a lot of good ways to look at benefits and policies to be really equitable and really inclusive. And, by the way, that goes a really long way when you're recruiting and you're retaining because those are key things that employees, particularly employees from sort of Gen z and millennial generations are really looking for right now. The next piece of that, which is the next, like, thread to pull after policies and benefits and kind of in parallel of that is looking at the full employee life cycle and ensuring that the DEI principles that you have developed and aligned on are threaded through all those processes. So what I mean by that is everywhere from outreach to to in related to outreach related to recruiting, the actual recruiting process, hiring, compensation, onboarding, and then ongoing professional development, sponsorship and mentorship, promotion criteria and so forth all of those processes need to be reviewed to make sure that those principles are are tied in there as well. Another component, sometimes people jump to this very early in the game which is completely fine, but if you haven't yet make sure you do it here, is to establish affinity and ally groups. So those can be referred to as ERGs, which is employee resource groups, BRGs, business resource groups. Some people call them networks. There are a lot of different ways to play with different words there.

Come up with fun acronyms. But this is where groups from different affinities and different identities have a place to come together and support each other, develop some community, and identify ways to really advocate for themselves as a collective and then creating space also for people who want to be supporters and allies of those groups so that they have an opportunity to participate and learn as well and then be effective advocates in the organization. And then super important, please don't forget, celebrate those DEI wins. I think a lot of people can get really deep in the policy and the process and the benefits and all these sort of mechanics and forget that you're achieving really great things as you go. And so tie that celebration into the ERG groups, tie it into the communications that you're doing. It's tied into the training that helps sustain momentum it helps to tell a great story around dei and the work that people are doing and just gets people excited and feeling really proud about what you've accomplished. So the other pieces that you really need in place from a culture perspective for those operational elements to work are 2 additional things. 1 is that you've got really well defined and followed team norms.

So establishing sort of rules of engagement, for lack of a better word, on behaviors that are expected, commitments we're willing to make to each other. That can be in how meetings are run and how teams are run, in how different groups report to each other, report out to the organization. Just making sure that those team norms are really well in place and consistently adhere to. And then the other piece, again, tying on the communication thread is collaboration, communication, learning, and feedback are highly, highly valued. If you don't have good feedback mechanisms in place, you have not trained people on how to give really good effective feedback that's very developmental, A lot of this isn't going to work. Feedback is such an important component of a lot of these processes being revamped. A lot of the policies working that you're putting in place. So making sure that you're spending the time focusing on providing feedback, creating an environment of learning.

This ties very much to psychological safety. There's great collaboration, a lot of communication. Those are all really important to keep moving through this maturity model. And then finally, the 3rd piece, which is really where you've got all of these foundational and operational components humming along, is where you get to really be in kind of expand and enhance mode. So expanding enhancing DEI looks like including the success measures and KPIs metrics that you've defined for for DEI success into all leadership performance reviews. And ultimately really trickling that down those down in terms of what's actually achievable at all levels into really everyone's performance reviews. So everybody's got some skin in the game related to the success of of DEI. Making sure that DEI education is part of just a continuous process.

So it's built into onboarding. It's built into standard training that you get when you're promoted to a different level. It's part of ongoing refreshers and informal and informal training and communication. Maybe even you've got sort of self selected and self directed learning modules that are available to people who want to learn more about certain areas. Really making that commitment to invest in education is is part of sort of getting into that best practice realm. Making sure your leaders are well equipped to handle questions that come up from people in their organization when different DEI kind of current events pop up or issues pop up so that they're not left hanging, having to wing it, or wait for the most senior leader to have a script of what to say, making sure there's some good guidelines in place so that any people leader feels like they can respond to questions that will come up naturally as part of just day to day work. Another great element to think about here is mentoring and sponsorship. So this is where a lot of companies will create programs around high performers that have been targeted early in their career that they want to make sure getting the development they need.

It can also be looking at some folks who maybe come from backgrounds that maybe not were maybe were not as equitable as some others in the organization. So again, shoring that up. Hopefully, you've been doing that along the way, but this is where you would put a very rigorous process in place to make sure that you've got a lot of people getting great support mentor mentorship and sponsorship from leaders across the organization. This is also a terrific time to dig into supplier diversity so that's a great way to extend your DEI principles out into the community, thinking about people that you contract with for supplies, for services, for materials, other business partners, and thinking thinking about, like, how can we use our spend on these various categories to really make a difference in some other small businesses who may be minority owned or minority operated or maybe even it's just local small businesses that you want to support. So defining what that program looks like for you and then putting some good tracking mechanisms into place. That also provides great fodder for additional communications and great storytelling related to DEI. Another external element is tying your DEI work and your mission and goals to community outreach. So many organizations have foundations or they have robust, community service programs or philanthropy programs.

Those are amazing way amazing opportunities to pull your DI principles and practices out into the community again to have additional impact and really make a difference. And finally, making sure you're all staying connected across the organization on the things that you're trying, that you're learning, that have worked well, lessons learned along the way, how you've pivoted and tried some different things, particularly in large organizations with multiple divisions. It's really important to be sharing those best practices across the company so that you're all continuing to move forward together and not losing momentum. So those are the pieces that really encapsulate this kind of expand and enhance DI that that final step in the maturity model. The additional cultural requirements there are a culture of transparency, which is really what builds trust so that there's great visibility to performance. There's great visibility to what resources are focused on and to how we're not just the rosy part of how we're doing, but even some of the struggles we're having or challenges we're running into and then what the plans are to work through that. And then similar to this, but more focused on a leadership level is having an inclusive leadership style. So that is welcoming feedback, welcoming brainstorming as a group, welcoming that kind of input, welcoming challenges and questions as part of formulating strategies and directions forward.

It's really moving from a kind of command and control sort of organizational style to something that's much more collaborative and inclusive. And those two pieces are really critical to getting this last step on the maturity model to really work. So as you're building your roadmap for DEI, which can feel daunting, I do want you to feel confident that you can do it. First of all, I hope that this maturity model has given you a little bit of a template for a roadmap. I also will say that if you've started and you've done some things that are foundational and you've done some things that are in the operational piece and maybe even 1 or 2 things out in the expand and enhance component that is completely fine. Don't stop doing those things but make sure before you go forward anymore you step back and really shore up the pieces in the foundational element before you move to shoring up the rest and operationalizing dei and then finally into the kpi, people focused, company mission, values and kpi's, the importance of behavior, team norms, great communication and collaboration, a culture of learning and feedback, a culture of transparency, and inclusive leadership style. If you keep those in mind and you put your resources toward those, then you're setting up your DEI work for tremendous success. Thank you so much for joining us.

I hope you found this really helpful. And that's a wrap I'm michelle bogan and that's your dei minute for today thank you so much for listening please be sure to follow us wherever you listen to podcasts, and don't forget to leave us a review. If you ever have questions, please visit our website or send us an email. You can also sign up for our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn, YouTube, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram. Links to everything can be found in the episode notes. This episode was produced and edited by Podgrove with podcast art by our very own Jamie Applegate.